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Variety reports that director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) has signed on to helm an adaptation of the Robert Ludlum thriller The Chancellor Manuscript.  The book, which Peter O'Brien will adapt, centers on Peter Chancellor (wordplay!) who turns in a manuscript (ah, now it's coming together) about powerful Washington D.C. folks who are blackmailed into altering U.S. policies.  That is so wrong.  Only organizations and companies with ungodly sums of money should be able to do that.

Paramount paid $4 million for the rights back in 2005 and that makes a lot of sense when you consider that Ludlum's novels were the inspiration for the highly successful Bourne franchise (even though the books have eventually became a source for the titles as the plot of The Bourne Ultimatum film bears almost no resemblance to the book).  Other Ludlum thrillers in the pipeline include The Sigma Protocol, which Universal is developing, and The Matarese Circle, which has David Cronenberg attached to direct, and Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise attached to star.

Forster has received some acclaim in the past for his films Finding Neverland and The Kite Runner, but the guy has never really impressed beyond some slightly clever touches to Stranger Than FictionQuantum just informed me that the guy is not to be trusted with action movies.  That movie has four chase scenes and they're all incredibly dull.  Hopefully, he'll change my opinion with this new movie.